Net Neutrality for Writers: It’s All About the Leverage

Posted by Henry Rothwell on May 2, 2012 in Featured, The Web

Author: Cory Doctorow.

Please see the bottom of the post for release notes and more by this author.

Imagine this: you pick up the phone and call Vito’s, the excellent pizza joint down the road where your family’s gotten its favorite pepperoni and mushroom every Friday night for years. The phone rings once, twice, then:

Writing In The Age Of Distraction

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Apr 27, 2012 in Featured, The Web

Author: Cory Doctorow.

Please see the bottom of the post for release notes and more by this author.

We know that our readers are distracted and sometimes even overwhelmed by the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the internet, but of course writers face the same glorious problem: the delirious world of information and communication and community that lurks behind your screen, one alt-tab away from your word-processor.

Why the Publication of Archaeology 2.0 has Important Implications for the Future of Academic Publishing

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Apr 23, 2012 in Digital Archaeology, Featured, The Web, Writing

A New Publishing Model?

For those of you interested in how information has been transmitted from place to place throughout history (and I imagine that’s pretty much everyone who is reading this post), the publication of Archaeology 2.0 is potentially worth marking as a turning point.

Academic Publishing and Profit Squeezing – a Way Out.

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Mar 22, 2012 in Featured, The Web, Writing

I just Skyped Dr. George Nash to ask what kind of financial return he gets from having a paper published through the traditional academic publishing model, and he told me it amounted to nothing at all. Others have told me much the same story. So here we have a business model in which the content provider – the person who makes the business model possible in the first place – receives absolutely no financial reward for their efforts. Of course getting paid is not the driving force behind an academic producing a paper

Digital Disengagement (leave some behind).

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Mar 20, 2012 in Digital Archaeology, Featured, The Web, Writing

As I write this I have a Google Doc open on another screen, apparently writing itself, as participants in this open doc discuss gathering together to debate digital engagement in academia. This is a direct result of a tweet about engagement which included a link to the doc. People are jumping in. The debate has already begun. Suggestions are already being made about how people can be better included for the debate – the discussion about inclusion is happening before the proposed event is fixed – including how to avoid alienating ‘traditional’ academics who are either wary of digital technology, or have yet to see the benefits.

Good Enough is Perfect.

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Mar 18, 2012 in Featured, The Web, Writing

The animator and director John Lasseter  has been quoted as saying that Pixar films are never finished, they just get released. He wasn’t the first to express this sentiment -  in 2002 Star Wars sound effects engineer Ben Burtt made a documentary called ‘Films are not Released, they Escape‘.

Obviously these are just two recorded instances. I don’t doubt that there have been countless expressions of the same sentiment directed towards a large number of creative endeavours throughout history (and prehistory).

Defining Digital Archaeology.

Posted by Henry Rothwell on Mar 15, 2012 in Digital Archaeology, Featured, Writing

There are inherent difficulties when defining an object/discipline. I’ve written about it elsewhere, using the word ‘henge’ as an example of the dangers of being too rigid, and how archaeology could pick up a trick or two from taxonomy. If you’d like to read it as background, it’s here. It’s nothing too serious – I’m 37% sure it was used as the basis for a question on QI, and if the QI pixie who follows the DD Twitter stream wants to confirm/deny this, I’ll let you know.